1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a file exchange system in which a file managed by a server on a network is exchanged between mobile devices and a mobile device used in the system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Along with the widespread use of the network, an online storage service is increasingly being used in which a computerized document or image acquired by an information device such as a personal computer (PC), a digital camera, or a mobile telephone (hereinafter, the computerized document or image is referred to as “file”) is managed in a server on a network. In this service, by operating the information device, a user can access the server via the network and store the file in an online storage area, assigned to each user, on an internal or external storage device of the server.
Further, a system in which a file is exchanged between portable information devices (mobile devices) has been known. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2010-086174 discloses that a file is transmitted from one mobile device to another mobile device such that a file existing in one mobile device is transmitted to another mobile device by near field communication such as Bluetooth (a registered trademark) or Infrared Data Association (IrDA), or a file existing in one mobile device is uploaded to a storage device inside a server on a network, and then another mobile device downloads the file. Further, even though not stated in literatures, it has been implemented that a file managed by a server on a network is downloaded by one mobile device and then transmitted to another mobile device by near field communication.
However, in the conventional system, when an exchange target file exists in the mobile device, the user can perform an operation for transmitting the file directly to another mobile device. However, when the exchange target file exists on an online storage, the user has to first perform an operation of downloading the file to the mobile device and then perform an operation of transmitting the file to another mobile device. Thus, there is a problem in that an operation different from the case in which the file exists in the mobile device is necessary, and the number of operations increases.